New TLDs

[B4its2L8]

In case anyone is interested: in Namecheap's recent email/newsletter they say

Want to get in on a new TLD? We're still offering the following:

• .builders, .email, solutions, .support, and .training on March 26

[kijinbear]

Originally Posted by B4its2L8

.email

.mail would have been better. Then we could have domains like fast.mail, tuff.mail, g.mail, hot.mail, and polaris.mail...

Anyway, I only skimmed the previous discussion in this thread but does anyone know what would happen if a company that sponsored a TLD went out of business? It is inevitable that at least some, if not many, of the new TLDs will become rather unprofitable after a while. But if the sponsor goes bankrupt, and nobody else wants to pick up the unprofitable TLD, what happens to all the people who built their online identities and even entire businesses on that TLD? Will all the domains simply disappear, or is there a plan for ICANN to "bail out" failed TLDs?

[FredOnline]

Originally Posted by kijinbear

is there a plan for ICANN to "bail out" failed TLDs?

Have any "failed"?

[janusz]

Originally Posted by kijinbear

does anyone know what would happen if a company that sponsored a TLD went out of business? TLDs?

You think (no,.you know) there are corporate sponsors for each TLD? So who sponsors .com, .co.uk, .fm, .de &c?

[kijinbear]

Originally Posted by janusz

You think (no,.you know) there are corporate sponsors for each TLD? So who sponsors .com, .co.uk, .fm, .de &c?

Probably not for old TLDs like .com and country-code TLDs like .fm.

But many recently added TLDs like .aero and .xxx have corporate sponsors, and I assume it's the same for all the other new ones. After all, it costs $185,000 to apply for a TLD, so it's off limits to most people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsored_top-level_domain

[B4its2L8]

Originally Posted by kijinbear

.mail would have been better.

I'm sure it's on the way. Maybe later this Spring?

[Tsunami]

Originally Posted by kijinbear

.mail would have been better. Then we could have domains like fast.mail, tuff.mail, g.mail, hot.mail, and polaris.mail...

Anyway, I only skimmed the previous discussion in this thread but does anyone know what would happen if a company that sponsored a TLD went out of business? It is inevitable that at least some, if not many, of the new TLDs will become rather unprofitable after a while. But if the sponsor goes bankrupt, and nobody else wants to pick up the unprofitable TLD, what happens to all the people who built their online identities and even entire businesses on that TLD? Will all the domains simply disappear, or is there a plan for ICANN to "bail out" failed TLDs?

I doubt .pizza will ever be unsuccessful

On a serious note: some ccTLDs have seen their registry become disfunctional before, in which case ICANN usually re-delegates the ccTLD to a new registry (as happened with for example .so, which is operative again after having been down for quite a while). In the worst case scenario, some ccTLDs got defunct as no new registry was assigned, becoming de facto dormant, such as .um

I would assume with new TLDs, similar things happen if one of the sponsored TLDs would cease operations. But in the end, your question is interesting and I think nobody knows the ultimate answer as yet. I would say a company better not rely solely on one of those new TLDs for now, because that would be quite a risk indeed.

[William9]

Originally Posted by B4its2L8

In case anyone is interested: in Namecheap's recent email/newsletter they say

Namecheap is not the only registrar offering these TLD's. Check out Name.com.